


Not Now

by AceOfSpades22



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Body Horror, Gabe is literally falling apart, Jack is kind of a dick, M/M, Pre-Fall of Overwatch, Strike-Commander Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison, Talon - Freeform, it's mild body horror tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:15:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22733941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceOfSpades22/pseuds/AceOfSpades22
Summary: Gabriel didn’t know what was happening to him. It started out with feeling faint. A little light headed here, like the world was spinning there. Tunneled vision. He chalked it up to living his life fueled off caffeine and not nearly enough sleep...Not now, Gabriel.... Not now.
Relationships: Reaper | Gabriel Reyes/Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison
Comments: 4
Kudos: 51





	Not Now

Gabriel didn’t know what was happening to him. It started out with feeling faint. A little light headed here, like the world was spinning there. Tunneled vision. He chalked it up to living his life fueled off caffeine and not nearly enough sleep. Blackwatch had a habit of doing that to him, especially considering his strike team consisted exclusively of himself, Jesse, and Genji. He couldn’t trust the basic recruit for most of the shit they did.

But, the faint feeling turned into random bruises. The bruises, to sores. They hurt. Badly. The first time he really looked at the sores made him sick. He could watch in real time as the skin became necrotic and infected and just… fell away in dead chunks from his body. Oh, the SEP chemical soup that ran his body would heal each one in a few hours, sure, but that didn’t stop it from really freaking him out. Something was wrong...

He just didn’t want to know what it was.

So he kept up business as normal. Find targets. Gather intel. Send in the strike team. Mission success. Rinse. Repeat.

It was a cathartic, if not exhausting system, but one that was growing increasingly necessary to keep the fragile peace of the world intact. To keep Overwatch safe. There were too many roaches crawling around in the underground of the world to turn a blind eye these days. Problem was, the evil seemed to permeate in all the wrong places. World governments, well respected international companies, prize winning research centers. Targets too high up for Overwatch to publicly handle.

Good thing Blackwatch was known only to those that existed in it, or that came face to face with the barrel of a Hellfire.

Gabriel wasn’t a violent man by nature, but sometimes it was easier to bear the black stain that death and torture brought onto his own heart than to burden someone else. He’d long since learned the lesson that sometimes violence was necessary. The greater good was better than the good of one man.

Besides. The ones he sought out for “interrogation” always deserved it. There was never a mistake when he finally went in for the kill. Not that it made it much easier to sleep at night, especially considering his strike team had taken out more than one “influential” figurehead in the world in the past few months. 

There were whispers of an organized crime syndicate that labelled themselves Talon with the theory that only through conflict could the world and humanity continue to evolve. And god be damned were they hell bent on following through with that vision.

Talon was everywhere. In the UN, in politics, in world militaries. Anywhere that someone could gain even a little power over others, Talon was there, rearing its ugly head.

It didn’t help matters that Jack was so painfully detached from what he and his team did that he didn’t truly grasp the threat Talon presented, and no matter how hard he tried to tell his lover what was going on, he got the same excuses.

“Not now, Gabriel. I have a meeting.

“Not now, Gabriel. It’s better I don’t know, anyway. Plausible deniability, remember?”

“Not now, Gabriel. There are new recruits Ana wants me to make an appearance for.”

“Not now, Gabriel.”

Not now...

He didn’t know when he’d stopped being “babe” or even “Gabe” and had become such a cold, impatiently spoken to “Gabriel.”

The name sounded so foreign on Jack’s lips, and a little piece of him broke every time he heard it. He wanted to punch that “Gabriel” right off Jack’s lips.

It was one of the reasons he threw himself headfirst into the mission.

Maybe it was one of the reasons he hadn’t told anyone he seemed to be falling apart at the seams, too.

The real alarm bells didn’t start sounding until his spine started aching. The familiar kiss of phantom pain from his nerve damage back in his pre-SEP days had started getting progressively worse. Less a phantom and more excruciatingly real.

Back in the day when Bastion shrapnel had severely lacerated his spinal cord, and he’d been very close friends with the now obsolete Spider system, an external spinal reconstruction skeleton he’d sported all the way up through the final days of SEP, he’d been no stranger to fits of agony strong enough to bring him to his knees.

He’d left it far behind on SEP graduation. It’d been freeing to finally not have an access panel that left a circuit board of biocybernetics nerves exposed for doctors to take hold and play with. They’d assured him he’d never feel such pain again.

Apparently, never equated to no more than a few decades. He’d found out the hard way in the middle of a mission when he dropped like dead weight after he lost feeling in both of his legs, and had Jesse not been the self-sacrificing son of a bitch he was, he’d have been dead with a shotgun blast to the skull from his own dropped Hellfire.

As it was, Jesse had lost an arm, and he had a fresh new smattering of scars on his own face and neck, though the wounds were nothing compared to the guilt that ate at him, knowing full well his own stubborn pride had directly resulted in Jesse’s injury.

It was why he’d finally sucked it up and found himself in Angela’s office the next morning.

“Gabriel...” Angela said with a frown as she examined one of the many sores on his chest. From the concern glittering in her soft blue eyes, Gabriel had a sick feeling they were worse news than he had previously thought.

“How long have you been developing these?” She asked as she slowly stood up straight and fixed him with a steady gaze. “You’re certain they’re not a byproduct of the shot Jesse took for you?”

“The shotgun shrapnel hit my full in the face and neck, Ang. Not my chest. Not my stomach… definitely not my thigh.” Gabriel said quietly. He knew she didn’t truly believe that the gunshot had made the wounds.

For one, the wounds on his face weren’t necrotic, and these three sores had shown up throughout the night while he slept.

“No... You’re right. They don’t look remotely the same. Let me cut away some of the dead skin so I can run a few tests… I’ll need to draw blood from you as well... Just. Take it easy for a few days. Until I know what’s causing this, I’m putting you on light duty medical le—”

“No way.” Gabriel said, immediately rejecting the idea.

“Gabriel, this is serious!”

“I’m serious, too, Ang. No way am I going on light duty leave. No one can know about this. Not Jesse. Not Ana. Not Jack… especially not Jack. Just. Run the tests. Tell me what’s going on and try to come up with a solution.”

Angela was quiet, clearly unhappy with his order, but he didn’t see what choice he had. If he went on light duty, who would keep thwarting Talon’s plans? Not Jesse and Genji. The pair barely got along long enough to run missions with him there to mitigate Genji’s callused disregard to anyone else’s feelings, safety or well-being.

Not that Jesse would be up to running missions himself any time soon. No. A Blackwatch strike team existing solely of Genji Shimada would be nothing but senseless slaughter, and certainly Jack nor any of the rest of Overwatch that was in the know of Blackwatch’s existence could handle his task work… If they even chose to take it seriously

“You need to at least tell Jack, Gabriel. At least him... Don’t you think he’d want to know that you’re sick?” Angela asked after a while. She didn’t look up at him as she cut away dead skin and swabbed up some of the festering rot at the center of one of the sores.

There was a time when Gabriel wouldn’t have hesitated. Where he’d have said of course Jack would want to know. Of course his lover would care. There was a time when the man would have taken a as many days as it took to step back from the pressure of Strike Commander and step seamlessly into the role of care giver while he healed.

Not now, Gabriel.

“No. I don’t want to bother him. He’s been so busy with all this Null Sector bullshit and there’s the up and coming Talon organization that we’re just barely getting a reading on... He’s too busy to be worrying about me.” He said, and damn was it hard to talk around the lump rapidly growing in his throat.

The ache of the sores and the resurging throb of what he thought was long since healed nerve damage had nothing on the bitter longing for the uncomplicated, easy relationship he’d lost.

They knew when the UN had overlooked Gabriel as Strike Commander and appointed Jack instead that things would be different. Jack swore he wasn’t a leader, that there was some mistake. It was Gabriel that was meant for the title. He’d led them all through hell during the Omnic Crisis, but the UN was afraid of the “doom and gloom” in his heart. It was perfect for the covert, illegal dealings of Blackwatch, but the public needed a golden boy. A poster child.

Jack.

Yet, Gabriel couldn’t help but wonder. If he’d been given the role... would he still have lost his sunshine?

“I’ll... keep your secret for now, Gabriel.” Angela said, though he could tell she was torn by her promise. “But I do highly encourage you tell him. I think he cares enough about you that he’d want to know regardless of how busy he is.”

“He did, once... I’m not so sure now.” Gabriel said quietly.

Angela pursed her lips, looking about ready to say something, but seemed to think better of it. “Very well. I’ve collected enough samples to perform a few tests. If you start getting worse, come see me immediately. In the meantime, try to at least minimize the amount of missions you run until I have a better idea of what’s happening to you… and how to fix it.”

“Sure, Ang. I’ll try to keep to base for a bit. It’d be hard to run any particularly important missions with a third of my team in the infirmary still. How is Jesse doing, anyway?”

“Ana and I haven’t let up on the morphine enough for him to be particularly coherent. We’re trying to wait until we’ve gotten his new arm completed before we let him wake up fully. It’ll be less of a shock, I think, to wake up to a cybernetic arm than to a stump. Surprisingly, Genji has sat with him the entire time you’ve all been back. I think... he might actually care for Jesse. It’s hard to tell with him sometimes.”

Gabriel blinked, to which Angela threw up her hands defensively.

“… You’re sure he’s not plotting ways to kill him, right?” He asked, only half joking.

“Considering he’s been crawling into bed with Jesse when the morphine lets up just enough that he has nightmares, I’d say no. It’s about time Genji tried to make a friend. I think he’s made himself lonely after only allowing himself to talk to me.”

“Loneliness of his own design. It’s not from a lack of people trying to make friends with him.” Gabriel reminded as he got to his feet. The sore on his thigh burned angrily with the movement, but at least the excruciating pain in his spine that had cost them the mission the day before had faded away.

“I suppose not.” Angela agreed. “I should go check on Jesse now. Excuse me, Gabriel.”

With that, he watched her leave for a moment before turning around to head up the hall toward his office. He got about three steps up the hall before the soft crackle of the intercom system kicking on stop him.

“Commander Reyes to my office. Now.”

The anger in Jack’s voice hit like a ton of bricks, though it wasn’t terribly surprising. He hadn’t spoken to the man in… a few days? A week? He wasn’t sure, but news on the disastrous mission must have finally reached him.

He contemplated not going. His visit with Angela coupled with his sleepless, guilt infested night and the pain that seemed to constantly riddle his body in one way or another had left him exhausted. He didn’t want to have to face the anger and disappointment in Jack’s eyes, knowing he’d get a lecture about “messes to clean up” and “not being careful”.

But, if there was one thing about Jack that never changed, it was his stubbornness. He knew avoiding the summons would only make matters that much worse.

Avoiding the confused pairs of eyes that had turned on him as he stood indecisively in the hallway, he turned away from his own office and instead headed for Jack’s, and almost immediately regretted upon walking through the door to find Jack’s back turned to him.

He could see the tension in his lover’s shoulders in the way he held himself.

“Are you going to tell me just what you were doing sneaking around Numbani of all places? There is footage of you, Jesse and Genji tracking some random man on street surveillance cameras, Gabriel! Do you know what I woke up to this morning?” Jack asked, his voice quiet and low pitched with barely contained rage.

Gabriel didn’t flinch, much as he might have wanted to, when Jack turned around to fix him with a steely glare.

“The knowledge that I nearly died?” He asked.

Jack scoffed, and this time Gabriel did flinch.

“Maybe I wouldn’t be fielding sanction notices for you if you had.” Jack growled out with a shake of his head.

The words landed harder than blows had Jack chosen to physically strike him. He’d never thought he’d see a day where Jack wished even in the slightest that he’d died on the field.

“You don’t mean that...” He whispered, the words little more than a plea as he met Jack’s gaze searchingly, only to look down at the ground when he was met with nothing but anger and hostility.

“I don’t know, Gabriel. I really don’t anymore. I don’t ask many questions on what you do with Blackwatch. I’ve been painfully lenient with the decisions you make but this? This was straight up sloppy. I’ve had Overwatch children’s fun camps run better “missions” than this. What the hell happened? Who is the man in the video feed?”

“He’s... a Nigerian man named Akande. His parents own a prosthesis company... we were following him because we think he has ties to one of the Talon ring leaders. Gerard found surveillance videos of him talking with Akinjide Adeyemi...” Gabriel explained.

“You _think_ or you know?” Jack interrupted.

“Well we know he’s connected to Akinjide, and that Akinjidie is connected to Talon. So it’s a safe assumption...”

Jack scoffed again and closed his eyes, having to visibly take a few deep breaths.

“So let me get this straight. You went to Numbani on a mission know one knew about, that you didn’t ask for clearance for, your criminal teenager protégé had his arm blown off by the very guy you were tailing, with the entire encounter caught on a grainy street surveillance camera based on an assumption he’d have some sort of intel? How desperate are you to prove that Talon is as big a threat as you think it is, Gabriel?” Jack growled

“How blind can you be to think it’s not, Jack?” Gabriel shot back. “The Jack I knew in the Omnic Crisis wouldn’t sit by until something like Talon became a threat large enough to show up on the public radar! If this really is an international crime syndicate hell bent on starting a global scale war to “improve humanity” we need to stop it now!

“Not this again... Gabriel I don’t have _time_ for your what if scenarios. Right now our biggest focus is to keep Null Sector from getting ideas in the UK. Not Talon. There is no hardcore evidence that they even have the power of numbers to cause a war the size you’re talking about.”

It was the same dismissal Gabriel was used to. He didn’t know why he’d expected any different.

“If you’d take the time to read the reports I’ve been writing for you—”

“I barely have time to eat one good meal a day, let alone to read your paperwork.” Jack snapped. “Look...” He said, pausing as if to try and control his anger. “Just... do me a favor, Gabriel. Stay out of trouble. I can’t just keep cleaning up your mess.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Gabriel growled, though his words held little bite. Not with the way the world had started to sway. A new sore was forming between his shoulder blades, larger than what he was used to, and the pain distracted him from the argument. Had he developed a fever? His entire body felt like it was radiating heat, and sweat had started to bead on his forehead. He could feel the salty drops stream soundlessly down the back of his head and across his neck.

“I work just as hard as you do, Jack Morrison. Talon is a threat. A _big_ threat considering it’s one you’re not even considering taking seriously. I’m trying to keep you, and everyone else in Overwatch safe, damn it! Gerard has soundbites of conversation explicitly stating they intend to target us!”

“If I was worried about every organization that said they meant to attack Overwatch, I’d never leave my office.” Jack said, and for a moment, his gaze seemed to soften ever so slightly.

“Gaberiel… maybe you’re just exhausted from working so much. Why don’t you take some time to rest, especially while Jesse is hung up with his injuries. I think if you clear your head a bit, you’ll calm down.”

“Clear me h… Jack what do you take me for? Some paranoid basket case that can’t tell a threat from an imagi- and im..” He broke off into a sudden coughing fit, eyes blowing wide in alarm as a nasty rattle sounded deep in his chest.

It only seemed to get worse the longer the coughing went on and he found himself stumbling back against the wall as he struggled to draw air into his lungs enough to breathe.

“Gabe? Babe?” He could hear Jack’s voice anger evaporating as he got to his feet and rushed to his side though Gabriel stubbornly stumbled back a few more steps in his attempts to get away from him.

He didn’t want Jack’s concern. Not now. Not after their argument. Not after Jack had said it’d be better he’d have died, even if the words were in anger.

Not now, Gabriel.

But, as the world started spinning and his legs gave out, both from the suddenly flare of pain in his spine and the desperate need for air, he couldn’t help but to be begrudgingly grateful that Jack’s strong arms caught him before he could hit the floor.

“Athena! Get Angela in here, now! Hold on, Gabe. Ang is coming...” Jack said, though his voice sounded distant, as if he was listening to him through water.

He coughed again, harder this time as he doubled over on himself and spewed a fountain of blood onto the floor. Tears streamed down his eyes and his hands clenched and unclenched as if he could claw the air into his lungs though the blood that gushed from both his mouth and nose made the very thought of inhaling impossible.

The sores were opening all over now. His face. His chest. His back… He could feel one on the bottom of his foot, and on the inside of his cheek, and still the blood poured from his mouth and nose.

Distantly he could here Angela as she slammed open the door to Jack’s office, and the panicked sound of Jack himself, but it was impossible to discern what they shouted at each other through the roaring ring in his ears as he toppled face first the rest of the way into a pool of his own bile soaked blood as black ate away at his vision.

Not now, Gabriel...

Funny how even now the mantra still rang in his ears.

**Author's Note:**

> I meant to write something cute for Valentine's Day and ended up with this instead. I might come back to it to make it something longer? Who knows. 
> 
> Like my work? Come chat with me on twitter @AceOfSpades_22


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